In addition to self isolation, widespread testing to identify asymptomatic spreaders is needed. YaleNews:
The conclusion of a new Yale-led study is clear: Without dramatic action, there won’t be enough beds for the sickest COVID-19 patients.
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This is the latest Lifeboat Foundation update on our worldwide pandemic.
It is also at https://www.facebook.com/groups/lifeboatfoundation/permalink/10158811699298455.
Key summary of this report:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=tPx1yqvJgf4
Don’t despair: In just 45 seconds, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams demonstrates how to make your own cloth facemask.
It’s lo-tech. You can use a T-shirt, hand towel, or bandana. The only other thing you need is rubber bands.
Continue reading “CDC shows you how to make a face mask in 45 seconds” »
The ongoing fight against the COVID-19 pandemic could get a boost if Canadians paid more attention to the relative humidity levels in public and private spaces, according to a growing body of international research.
Doctors, scientists and engineers agree that sufficient indoor air moisture levels can have a powerful but little-understood effect on the transmission of airborne diseases. While the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is currently treated as one that’s transmitted through droplet infection rather than the air, research on exactly how it passes between humans is still underway.
Most buildings, however, fall short of the recommended threshold of 40 to 60 per cent relative humidity, particularly in countries with colder, dryer climates such as Canada.
The human cerebral cortex is important for cognition, and it is of interest to see how genetic variants affect its structure. Grasby et al. combined genetic data with brain magnetic resonance imaging from more than 50,000 people to generate a genome-wide analysis of how human genetic variation influences human cortical surface area and thickness. From this analysis, they identified variants associated with cortical structure, some of which affect signaling and gene expression. They observed overlap between genetic loci affecting cortical structure, brain development, and neuropsychiatric disease, and the correlation between these phenotypes is of interest for further study.
Science, this issue p. eaay6690.
An international team led by University of British Columbia researcher Dr. Josef Penninger has found a trial drug that effectively blocks the cellular door SARS-CoV-2 uses to infect its hosts.
The findings, published today in Cell, hold promise as a treatment capable of stopping early infection of the novel coronavirus that, as of April 2, has affected more than 981,000 people and claimed the lives of 50,000 people worldwide.
“As the virologist who was part of the team who were first to isolate and share SARS-COV2 outside of China in January 2020, I am excited about the prospect of Ivermectin being used as a potential drug against COVID-19,” Leon Caly, senior medical scientist at the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory (VIDRL) at the Doherty Institute, said.
A vaccine for COVID-19 is likely still at least a year out, despite research teams across the world fast tracking work on potential vaccines. But that doesn’t mean we’re doomed.
“In times when we’re having a global pandemic and there isn’t an approved treatment, if we had a compound that was already available around the world then that might help people sooner,” Wagstaff said in the statement. “Realistically it’s going to be a while before a vaccine is broadly available.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York office recently sent out an alert to local authorities warning of extremist groups it said are encouraging their members to spread the novel coronavirus to police and Jewish people, ABC News reported.
According to the news agency, the alert, which was reportedly issued on Thursday, said that “members of extremist groups are encouraging one another to spread the virus, if contracted, through bodily fluids and personal interactions.”
The alert reportedly warned that the racist groups were urging their members to go to places where Jewish people “may be congregated, to include markets, political offices, businesses and places of worship.”
The ruling is a tougher version of China’s ban of wildlife meat, after it was linked to the virus.
